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Respectability and Success in connection with the 0* ! 

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FRAYERS OF HIS FLOCK I 



A DISCOURSE 



Entering upon the Pastoral Charge 



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REV. SAMUEL R. KEKR. A. M. 



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PUBLISHED BY THE CONGREGATION. 




P I T TSBURGH; 

Printed by Bakewell «S: Maktiiexs, No. 71 Grant St. | 

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The Christian Minister, 

WlS flESPECTABILITY AND SUCCESS IN CONNECTION WITH THE 
PRATERS OF HIS FLOCK I 



A DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF 



pNTERING UPON THE PASTORAL CHARGE 



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Sabbath, Jzcly 1MK. 1868. 



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REV. SAMUEL R. KERR, A. M. 



PUBLISHED BY THE CONGREGATION. 





PITTSBURGH: 
Printed by Bakewell & Marthens, No. 71 Grant St. 

1868 . 



DISCOURSE. 



" PRAY FOR US : FOR WE TRUST WE HAVE A GOOD CON- 
SCIENCE, IN ALL THINGS WILLING TO LIVE HONESTLY." 

Hebrews 13 : 18. 

My Brethren, the Apostle Paul, whose words 
have just been read, was endowed with intellectual 
abilities of the first order. He was accomplished in 
all the learning and other acquirements of his age, 
eminent in every department of literature and 
science, converted to the Christian faith by a special 
revelation of Jesus, and appointed by him to be a 
chosen vessel to bear his name before the Gentiles, 
and kings, and the house of Israel. In the prosecu- 
tion of his charge he expended all the energies of 
his highly gifted mind. In knowledge of the gospel 
and success in exhibiting it, in devotedness to Christ 
and sufferings for his sake, in spiritual gifts and the 
abundance of revelations, he was "not a whit behind 
the very chiefest apostles." Yet with all these 
splendid endowments he was deeply conscious of 
his utter unworthiness and utter unfitness for the 
high and responsible office to which he had been 
raised. When he thought of what he was and what 



he should be, his feelings overpowered him. " I was 
with you/' says he to the Corinthians, " I was with 
you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trem- 
bling. 5 ' And it was the same frame of mind which 
led him earnestly to implore an interest in the 
prayers of his hearers. " Pray for us : for we trust 
we have a good conscience, in all things willing to 
live honestly." If such were the feelings of the chief 
of the apostles, what should be mine ? If one of 
such transcendent piety and supernatural endow- 
ments begged an interest in the fervent supplications 
of the saints, of how much higher importance is it 
that the individual who now addresses you should 
be borne upon your spirits to a throne of grace ? 
We trust, brethren, that we have some adequate 
feeling of the importance of that office with which 
we have been invested, and of the awful responsi- 
bility which it involves, and that we stand excused 
before the Most High God, and you the people of 
our charge, for adopting the Apostle's language and 
meeting you this morning with his urgent request, 
" Pray for us : for we trust we have a good con- 
science, in all things willing to live honestly." 

The subject, then, to which our attention is di- 
rected from these words, is, 

The Respectability and Success of a Christian 
Minister, connected with the prayers of his 
flock. 



And to illustrate it, we shall call your attention 

I. To the personal qualifications requisite for our 
office. 

II. To the duties attendant upon it. 

III. To the discouragements incident to it. 

IV. Urge the request from the motives which orig- 
inate from our office. 

In the first place, we call your attention to 
the personal qualifications requisite for our office. 
These are specified by the Apostle, and are of a 
two-fold description, " a good conscience, and living 
honestly." The former implies the personality of 
religion ; the latter, respectability of character. We 
say the text implies, in the first place, the personality 
of religion. " We trust" saith Paul, " we have a 
good conscience." He might have said, we know 
that we have a good conscience. But the Apostle 
was an humble man, and his language may put to 
the blush some who are incessantly vaunting of 
the purity of their motives and of the certainty of 
their vital piety. 

Conscience is that faculty of the soul which pro- 
nounces judgment upon the volitions of the heart 
and the actions of the life. But it is not infallible 
in its dictates. Its opinion is always formed accord- 
ing to the degree of knowledge which a man 
possesses of good and evil. So if his judgment be 
under the influence of erroneous principles, the 



conclusions which his conscience deduces must be 
erroneous also. The standard is defective. The 
history of the Apostle whose words we are consid- 
ering affords an illustration. He had an approving 
conscience even when persecuting with relentless 
fury the church of God. "I verily thought with 
myself/' says he, " that I ought to do many things 
contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." 

A good conscience has two properties. These are 
illumination and sincerity. It must be well in- 
formed. It must act under the influence of an en- 
lightened judgment. Now, to possess this illumina- 
tion, it is necessary for a minister or private Christian 
to be a subject of divine grace, because it is divine 
grace alone which qualifies the mind to form a cor- 
rect estimate of good and evil, of truth and error, 
and the lines of demarcation between them. " The 
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit 
of God : for they are foolishness unto him ; neither 
can he know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
cerned." " If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them 
that are lost : in whom the god of this world hath 
blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest 
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is 
the image of God, should shine unto them." There 
must be a spiritual discernment and a holy taste 
engendered in us, before we can understand the 
Scriptures. These divine oracles cannot be fully 



understood or relished until we receive the stamp 
and impression of them on our hearts. 

But sincerity as well as illumination is necessary 
to constitute a good conscience. It must be sincere. 
It must perform its duty faithfully. It must ap- 
prove or condemn continually. Personal godliness 
is indispensably necessary to constitute a faithful 
minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. This neither 
schools, nor colleges, nor theological seminaries can 
supply, and without it, the greatest talents and most 
overpowering eloquence will only dazzle and destroy. 
There must be a principle of inward piety and de- 
votedness to God, and this the Holy Spirit alone 
can impart. And even where it has been imparted 
— where it does exist, it requires to be habitually 
cherished. Without intimate communion and fel- 
lowship with the Master we serve, the live coals of 
the altar will be put out by our touch, and the 
work of the study and of the sanctuary will be a 
drudgery from which we shall feel happy to escape. 
But the personality of religion will support amid all 
the anxieties of the study, a fervor and unction 
will be diffused through our prayers, and an energy 
imparted to our discourses which, through accom- 
panying grace, will overawe the profane, comfort 
the disconsolate, and render the house of God the 
gate of heaven. Oh then, pray for us, that we may 
walk much with God — that we may live near unto 



him. It is only the shadow of his wings which will 
shelter us from evils to which you as hearers are not 
exposed. It is only the light of his countenance 
which can cheer our spirits under circumstances of 
depression which you never feel. It is only inter- 
course and communion with him which can render 
us like the high priest of old, who was to be the 
minister of God to the people, more, much more by 
the richness of the perfume which he diffused, than 
by the splendors of the dress in which he was ar- 
rayed, or by the sound of the bells he wore. 

Ministers are in exceeding danger of declining in 
religion from the very circumstance of religion being 
their employment. I believe no man was ever more 
religious for having his mind constantly employed 
about it. This may seem a paradox and absurd to 
some, but those who reflect for a moment how little 
necessary connection there is between the study of 
the system of divinity and spirituality of mind, will 
readily subscribe to the truth of the statement. 
Our religious character depends not on the nature of 
our vocation, but on the motives by which we are 
actuated in it. Keligion considered as a matter of 
speculation or of instruction, is as secular an object 
of pursuit as poetry or painting. 

None have greater reason to be jealous over them- 
selves with a godly jealousy than ministers. It is 
our business to peruse the Scriptures and think much 



9 

on divine subjects, to preach, and pray, and converse 
about them, and unless we are habitually cautious, 
we are in exceeding danger of doing so merely 
as the work of our ministerial calling. It requires 
large and incessant communications of divine grace, 
to maintain under these circumstances the spirit of 
religion. Pray then, dear brethren, for us, that in 
discharging the duties of our office we may have " a 
heart right with God," and be enabled to " grow in 
grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ." 

The next qualification in a minister is ;; living 
honestly," which implies in the second place respecta- 
bility of character. The original term here rendered 
" honestly" includes much more than is generally 
understood by that phrase. It signifies respectability 
of character in general. The mitre which adorned 
the brow of the high priest was a significant emblem 
of that " holiness" which should be exemplified in 
the conduct of those who labor in holy thing s # 
They owe mankind a good example as well as sound 
doctrine ; and the one is an ordinance for their con- 
versation and instruction no less than the other. 
fc; Be thou an example of the believers," says Paul 
to Timothy, ;; in word, in conversation, in charity, 
in spirit, in faith, in purity." "' Be ye blameless 
and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in 
the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among 



10 

whom ye shine as lights in the world : holding forth 
the word of life : that I may rejoice in the day of 
Christ,, that I have not run in vain, neither labored 
in vain." But it is not merely necessary that a 
minister should be harmless. That men can sub- 
stantiate no charge of vice against him, he must be 
so pre-eminently holy that even his enemies will 
admit it, A bishop must not merely be blameless, 
he must have a good report of them which are 
without. " This is a true saying, If a man desire 
the office of a bishop, he desire th a good work. A 
bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one 
wife, vigilant, > e ober, of good behavior, given to 
hospitality, apt to teach ; not given to wine, no 
striker, not greedy of filthy lucre ; but patient ; 
not a brawler, not covetous ; one that ruleth well 
his own house, having his children in subjection 
with all gravity ; (for if a man know not how to 
rule his own house, how shall he take care of the 
church of God ?) not a novice, lest being lifted up 
with pride he fall into the condemnation of the 
devil. Moreover, he must have a good report of 
them which are without ; lest he fall into reproach 
and the snare of the devil." 1 Timothy 3 : 1-7. 
An ungodly minister is, of all characters, the 
most unnatural and the most odious ; and, I may 
add, the most guilty. He brings unmerited odium 
upon the hallowed name by which he is called. 



11 

He hardens scoffers against religion. He incurs the 
guilt and infamy of Jeroboam, who is never men- 
tioned but to be stigmatized as he who " made Is- 
rael to sin." "It must needs be that offenses come ; 
but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." 
There are too many ministers, and ministers of 
whom we may charitably indulge the hope that 
they are Christians, whose conduct in the parlor 
ill accords with their appearance in the pulpit; 
who by the levity of their deportment, and the 
frivolousness of their conversation, and rhe sel- 
fishness of their spirit, exhibit a striking contrast 
to the humbling, self-denying doctrines which they 
inculcate. Brethren, pray for us, that we may be 
preserved from this snare ; ,; giving no offense in 
any thing, that the ministry be not blamed." We 
are men of like passions with yourselves. If God 
withdraw his grace from me, I am capable of 
perpetrating any crime. If God Almighty with- 
draw his grace from me, I may blast my char- 
acter, and ruin my public usefulness, and render 
my warmest friends ashamed to own me. Pray 
for me, that I may " hold the mystery of the 
faith in a pure conscience," and iw adorn the 
doctrine of God my Saviour in all things," and 
that I may be enabled to say at last with our 
Apostle : ''Our rejoicing is this, the testimony 
of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly 



12 

sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the 
grace of God, we have had our conversation in 
the world, and more abundantly to you-ward." 
" Pray for us : for we trust we have a good con- 
science, in all things willing to live honestly." 

To enforce this request further, we call your 
attention^ in the second place, to the duties con- 
nected with the office we sustain. The grand ob- 
ject of the Christian ministry is "to turn men 
from darkness to light, and from the power of 
Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness 
of sins, and inheritance among them which are 
sanctified." " Whom we preach, warning every 
man, and teaching every man, in all wisdom ; that 
we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." 
The summit of our ambition is to save those who 
hear us, to qualify them while in the church mil- 
itant to unite with all the ransomed of the Lord 
in the church triumphant. And how is this object 
to be attained? Not by lectures on morality, but 
by the preaching of the glorious gospel of the grace 
of God. This is the work of our ministry. We 
shall merely advert a little to the manner of our 
discharging it.. We must do so faithfully. We are 
to speak boldly, fearing no man's enmity and court- 
ing no man's friendship at the expense of truth. 
Though we would not willingly or intentionally 
wound any one's feelings^ yet we must be honest 



13 

to our conscience and honest to our God. But 
this fidelity is to be accompanied with affection. 
We are to speak in love, not lording it over God's 
heritage, but with a manner and a strain which 
evince that our heart's desire and prayer to God 
for you is that ye may be saved. Unless we live 
in your affection and esteem, we can have no 
reasonable prospect of usefulness among you. Un- 
less you feel convinced that we seek your welfare, 
you will reject our counsels and spurn our re- 
proofs. 

The gospel should also be preached judiciously. 
It is a high attainment " rightly to divide the 
word of truth." And to reach this, it is necessary 
that a minister should have a very extensive 
knowledge of human character, and a very exten- 
sive acquaintance of the Scriptures; a sound, dis- 
criminating judgment, and a studious disposition. 
In one word, the whole counsel of God is to 
be disclosed in all its relative bearings, that by 
bringing things new and old out of the treasury of 
God, we may meet the" diversified necessities of 
those who hear us ; and we must be incessant in 
our labors, " instant in season and out of season." 

If you add to this catalogue of duties, my 
brethren, those of administering ordinances, visiting 
the sick, catechising, and family visitation, does 
not the mighty amount show how much we need 



14 

your fervent prayers ? Plead that these gifts and 
graces which your pastor so much needs may 
be imparted to him, and that those which he al- 
ready possesses may be preserved and increased. 

This will appear more necessary still if we con- 
sider, in the third place, the discouragements at- 
tendant upon or incident to our office. There are 
many who regard the ministry as a mere sinecure, 
and look on those who are in it as devoid of all 
care, enjoying undisturbed ease and tranquility. 
Those who have made the experiment, entertain 
respecting it very different sentiments. The most 
holy men have not hesitated to acknowledge that, 
if at the commencement of their ministerial career, 
they could have foreseen all the trials and dis- 
couragements which were in reserve for them, 
they would have declined the station. The Prophet 
Jeremiah seems to insinuate that he was brought 
into it by a species of deception. " Lord, thou 
hast deceived me, and I was deceived." Could 
candidates for the sacred office look into futurity, 
how often would the language of Moses have heen 
repeated, " my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the 
hand of him whom thou wilt send." And not 
one in a hundred would say with Isaiah, " Here 
am I ; send me." 

The speaker has comparatively a very imperfect 
knowledge of these discouragements. He has, how- 



15 

ever, experienced some of them, and he can easily 
imagine the source of others. Some of these arise 
from the nature of the office. We have seen that 
it is designed to render the depraved and the im- 
pure "holy, and harmless, and without rebuke. ,? 
The very mention of such an employment is suf- 
ficient to convince us that the difficulties connected 
with it are of no common magnitude, and to in- 
duce us to exclaim with Paul, "'Who is sufficient 
for these things ? " 

Men are by nature universally indisposed to the 
reception of the truth. It is most abhorrent to 
all their prejudices and clearest wishes. They do 
not feel their guilt and danger, and the man who 
attempts from Sabbath to Sabbath to convince 
them of these, will be represented as a messenger 
of evil tidings, and suspected of taking pleasure in 
overwhelming the soul with dark and evil fore- 
bodings. By many he will be regarded ' as de- 
lighting in the misery of his fellow creatures, and 
having in his religion a mixture of what is savage 
and inhuman. " I hate him," said the King of 
Israel respecting the prophet, " for he doth not 
prophesy good concerning me, but evil." 

There is perhaps nothing more painful to an 
affectionate child than to be suspected by its parents 
of ingratitude and want of filial love. And we 
think there can scarcely be anything more painful to 



16 

a minister who loves his flock, than to be suspected 
by them of delighting in their misery. My hearers? 
even the denunciations of a faithful minister against 
the ungodly are dictated by compassion. He may be 
pronounced unfeeling, and cruel, but he is just as cruel 
and unfeeling as the passing traveler whose humanity 
has prompted him at the silent midnight hour to 
knock up the slumberers in a tenement which had 
just caught fire, because, perhaps he has disturbed 
some pleasing dream or disturbed their repose. 
He is just as cruel as the angel who mercifully laid 
violent hands on Lot, reluctant to depart from the 
city of destruction. And he might with as much 
justice and propriety have taxed that merciful mes- 
senger with cruelty, as hearers the servants of the 
Most High God for attempting to rouse them from 
impending destruction. 

Our commission runs in the following fearful 
words: " Son of man, I have made thee a watchman 
unto the house of Israel : therefore, hear the word 
at my mouth, and give them warning from me. 
When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die ; 
and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to 
warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his 
life ; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity ; 
but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet 
if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his 
wickedness, nor from his wicked wav, he shall die in 



17 

his iniquity ; but thou hast delivered thy soul. 
Again, when a righteous man doth turn from his 
righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a 
stumbling-block before him, he shall die : because 
thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his 
sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall 
not be remembered ; but his blood will I require at 
thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the right- 
eous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth 
not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned ; 
also, thou hast delivered thy soul." Ezekiel 3 : 17-21. 
If at any time your minister should seem too urgent 
or too severe,'let this solemn and awful charge be his 
apology and excuse. Too urgent he cannot be. It 
is at the hazard of his life that he speak deceitfully, 
and it is at the hazard of yours if he shall speak in 
vain. 

The servants of Jesus who, with honest bold- 
ness, reprove vice and error wherever found, cannot 
expect exemption from malevolent aspersions. The 
enemies of truth and holiness who denounce the 
minister, will deride the servant, and strain every 
nerve to damp his ardor and mar his success. 
This was the life of our fathers who were set for 
the defense of the gospel, and it will be ours if we 
imbibe their spirit and walk in their steps. If we 
will not venture upon the enchanted ground of 
Antinomianism, and tell men that they may live 
3 



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as they please, we will be stigmatized as legalists; 
and if, on the other hand, the doctrines of free 
sovereign grace form, as they ought, the leading 
features in our sermons, to the utter exclusion of 
all self-righteous pretension, then we will be tra- 
duced as the enemies of holiness and good works. 
If we cannot chime in with certain prevailing sen- 
timents which are the great rage of the day, we 
will be pronounced illiberal and narrow minded. 
Brethren, pray for us, that we may be enabled 
"to contend for the faith which was once delivered 
unto the saints," and " in meekness to instruct those 
who oppose themselves ; if peradventure God will 
give them repentance to acknowledge the truth." 
It frequently happens, I believe, that great offense 
is given unintentionally by a minister to his peo- 
ple. Should he be led by the Spirit of God to 
condemn any vices or practices unknown to him 
to which they are ad doted, he is regarded as 
being malevolent in his intentions and personal in 
his remarks. How frequently is he reproached for 
nothing but being faithful to his solemn vows, as 
he would wish to be found among the saints at 
the "appearing of the great God and our Saviour 
Jesus Christ." 

Independent of these discouragements of a public 
nature, there are others which may be termed per- 
sonal. When a minister reflects on the qualifica- 



19 

tions which he should possess, on the knowledge, 
patience, prudence, integrity and fortitude requisite, 
on the stores of biblical knowledge, and the inti- 
mate acquaintance with the state of his flock 
which he should have, and contrasts these with 
his acquirements, he may be greatly dispirited. 
If he ask his own heart, where is that ardent love 
to the Lord Jesus Christ ; where that compassion 
for perishing sinners; where that meekness and 
heavenly mindedness which he should display ? 
such questions cause him to blush before God, and 
he is often ready, in a fit of heartless despondency, 
to abandon his post as uncalled and unqualified 
to fill it. And we believe those, who are most 
severe in their animadversions upon his public 
appearance, would pity him and pray for him 
were they fully aware of the feelings which oc- 
casionally pervade his heart. 

How little allowance is often made by congre- 
gations for the constitutional infirmities of their 
pastors. Hosts of nervous distempers are some 
times apt to seize the hard student, which he can 
never shake off afterward for life. The Bible may 
at times appear to him a sealed book. He may 
be often in deep anxiety about his own soul's sal- 
vation. The great enemy may at other times ply 
him with temptations. He must appear in the 
pulpit at the appointed hour, whatever be the 



20 

frame of his mind or the feelings of his heart ; 
and yet how many thoughtlessly expect that his 
discourses shall be equally interesting and equally 
instructive. 

Brethren, we trust that we shall obtain your 
indulgence, not to our errors or vices, but to the 
imperfections of our labors among you. If I want 
heart in the cause of your salvation, for that let 
me be despised. But if heart I have, for that let 
me secure your attention ; for that, when I cannot 
tickle your ears, let me interest your souls. Do 
not look upon me as an actor set up for your 
amusement. I trust you will come up to the 
worship of God with higher and holier motives, 
and that while I manifest a desire to be useful to 
you, and " speak the words of truth and sober- 
ness," I will be acceptable to you, however de- 
ficient in natural endowments. Censure me if 
averse to spend and be spent for your salvation, 
but oh spare me the cruel lash of criticism if I 
cannot amuse you with " the enticing words of 
man's w r isdom." 

I urge the request of the Apostle, in the fourth 
and last place, from the motives which originate 
from the office we sustain. Pray for us, on the 
ground of duty. We are the man of your own 
choice ; we labor for you ; our heart's desire to 
God and our great aim is that you may be saved. 



21 

The larger portion of grace we possess and the 
more gifts we receive, the advantage will redound 
to yourselves. If prayer be restrained, we will not 
be mutual comforts to each other. "I shall be found 
unto you such as ye would not, and I shall not 
find you such as I would." " God may humble 
me among you." 

In prayer you will find the grand secret of pros- 
perity. Without the influence of the Spirit your 
minister will preach in vain ; this house shall 
have been erected in vain ; your attendance here 
will be in vain. There is a homely but most 
important proverb upon this subject: "A praying 
people make a preaching minister." How often is 
he censured by the disappointed worshiper, when 
in fact, the cause was in that worshiper. He 
had offered no fervent and special supplication for 
a blessing on his pastor's labors. He had, there- 
fore, no right to expect it, and moreover, he was 
in no suitable frame to receive it, and thus it fre- 
quently happens that while the humble and earnest 
petitioner obtains a rich repast, the prayerle; s 
hearer departs empty away. I ask this favor, in 
in a word, as you value my salvation. " Pray for 
us," for if we perish our damnation will be double. 
The day of accounts and retribution is advancing. 
The solemn connection formed between us so lately 
is already in progress toward dissolution. I may 



22 

soon be called to my account ! And if I shall be 
found to have been false to the trust reposed in 
me, dreadful assuredly shall be my •doom. The 
blood of souls shall be required at my hand. 
And if misery be the portion of every transgressor, 
what shall be that of the minister upon whom the 
impenitent shall charge the ruin of his soul ? "I 
acknowledge that I am guilty, but my spiritual 
guide confirmed me in guilt ; at the time in which 
I violated thy precepts he proclaimed peace, peace, 
and I believed his report. He sanctioned my 
crimes by his own practices. Upon him I charge 
my destruction." My hearers, if sinners of a com- 
mon description shall cry to the rocks to fall on 
them, will not the ungodly preacher cry in agony 
to the mountains to hide him from the presence 
of Him who sitteth upon the throne and from the 
wrath of the Lamb ! Pray then for me, " lest 
that by any means, when I have preached to 
others, I myself should be a castaway." Pray that 
I may ever speak and act under the full influence 
of the apostolic exhortation : " Take heed unto 
thyself, and unto the doctrine ; continue in them : 
for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and 
them that hear thee." 

" As for me, God forbid that I should sin 
against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you : but 
I will teach you the good and the right way." 



23 

" The Lord bless you, and keep you ; the Lord 
make his face shine upon you, and be gracious 
unto you ; the Lord lift up his countenance upon 
jou, and give you peace." " Peace be within thy 
walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my 
brethren and companion's sake, I will now say, 
Peace be within thee. Because of the house of 
the Lord our God, I will seek thy good. 5 ' Amen. 



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